in order to conform with changing trendsand the speed at which we operate in themarketplace right now.”Leitch noted that vendors can pluginto banks’ APIs to receive data, and he saidthe greater use of APIs would help speedup implementations of new treasurymanagement systems.

“The longest part of any treasurymanagement system implementation istypically waiting for the banks to connectto the corporate and start sending data,”he said. “We have significantly decreasedthe time of this process in our ownimplementation by utilizing this newtechnology.”A survey conducted by Strategic Treasurerand TreasuryXpress found that while 72%of companies expected their treasurymanagement system implementation to takeno more than nine months, only 41% ofimplementations were finished within thattime frame.

Leitch said TreasuryXpress is rolling
out a new system early next year that
treasuries “can get up and running in
a day.” The new system will only be
available as a cloud solution, which
Leitch said was part of what enabled
the speedy implementation, along with
the methodology TreasuryXpress has
developed for running implementations.
“Treasury’s relationship with IT is what
slows it down.”

Robotics and AI

Another technology that’s getting
attention in the treasury space is artificial
intelligence, or AI, along with the related
fields of robotic processing automation (RPA)
and machine learning.

Machine learning can allow treasury
systems to take into account huge amounts
of data. TreaSolution’s Carmody said that
could come in handy for cash forecasting
and reconciliation.

With cash forecasting, systems “that
have access to a comprehensive data set can
utilize machine learning to give estimates
on cash forecasting scenarios,” he said. “On
the reconciliation side, the machine learning
capacity can analyze transactions as they are
happening and reconcile them.

“A machine learning system might be able
to see patterns in a cash flow that a human
may not have easily been able to calculate,
and point it out as a reconciliation area,”
Carmody added.

Jeffery agreed that machine learningcould be useful in cash forecasting, butsaid it might be a little too soon for mostcompanies to consider it, since “many aren’tdoing a good job of forecasting with themethods they have.”Leitch said TreasuryXpress already usesAI in its support function and plans tointegrate it into its front-office operations, withpossible uses including cash forecasting andanalyzing liquidity.

For example, he said, AI might provide
analysis around forecasting data and trends,
including historical data. If the company has
often overvalued a certain item on the budget
in the past, the system might point that out.
“It’s basically enhancing the corporate
treasurer’s ability to make a strategic decision,
but not making that decision for them,”
he said.

Blockchain

Blockchain, the distributed ledger
technology that underlies the cybercurrency
bitcoin, has been touted as a potential tool for
many financial chores. Strategic Treasurer’s
Jeffery noted that banks have invested sizable
amounts in blockchain technologies, while
payments provider Ripple and fintech Finastra
are both using the technology.

Carmody said blockchain technologycould be used in treasury managementsystems to provide “real-time, instantaneousvalidation of transactions.

“It’s yet to be fully developed, but there’s
potential for blockchain rollouts when it
comes to cross-border trade, where you
need to be able to validate all the parties in
a transaction,” Carmody said, and cited the
But Leitch argued that blockchain won’t
have a big effect on treasury technology for
another 10 to 15 years.

Outsourcing Implementation

Leitch predicted that treasury
management system vendors will embark
on a price war next year.

“It’s already started in Europe,” he said.“It’s now going to move to the U.S. The cost ofsolutions is dramatically being brought down.”He also cited the prospect that sometreasury management vendors may start tooutsource the implementation of their systemsto consulting companies. “That might cause ahuge disruption in the flow of implementing atreasury management system and getting it upand running,” Leitch said.

EY’s Bramwell noted that ERP vendors
have outsourced the implementation of their
software for years.

“Software vendors are starting to realizethat they are software companies and notservices companies,” Bramwell said. “Theyare wanting to focus more on being a softwarecompany and devoting their resources tomaking the software the best that it can be.”Jeffery said that while someimplementation activities that are lesscomplex might be better performed as partof an outsourcing arrangement, treasurymanagement software vendors that outsourcetoo much risk losing their expertise in certainareas. “The core and most complex aspects [ofimplementing a system] should never beoutsourced,” he said.

SOFTWARE (cont’d from page 3)

One big trend in treasury technology next year is likely to involve vendors moving to address the needs of small and
midsize enterprises (SMEs), according to Enrico
Camerinelli, a senior analyst at Aite Group, a
technology consulting company.

“The treasury players will be addressingmostly those companies that have been usingExcel quite extensively, and they might havesome basic accounting systems,” Camerinellisaid. “These companies are aware of thefact that using spreadsheets is not the bestsituation, but they don’t have the necessarybudget to go for the big [treasury managementsystems]. They need to have somethingsmaller.”Samuel Peay, senior treasury analystat the Utah-based Ancestry, which providesgenealogical science and technology solutions,exemplifies the kind of midsize company thatCamerinelli was discussing.

Ancestry’s three-person treasuryhad been using “a really robust tool” thatcombined Tableau and Excel, Peay said. But thetreasury team decided to shop for a treasurymanagement system amid concerns abouthow it would handle more complexity or anexpansion of the business to more countries.“If we go to more countries or start using morecurrency pairs, we weren’t sure we couldhandle it with the tool we had,” he said.Purchasing a treasury system can be achallenge for smaller companies. “Trying tofind a good fit for a treasury workstation isreally, really tough,” Peay said. “Most of themare priced out of reach; most of them take ayear to implement.”The Ancestry treasury team’s processfor selecting a system included ensuring that

Treasury Systems for SMEs

each of the three vendors it considered could
automate two key processes—consolidated
reporting of the cash positions from its banks in
different countries and daily cash forecasting.

“The other thing we did was build a list ofall the spreadsheets we used and graded thethree different companies on how many ofthese spreadsheets they can eliminate,” Peaysaid.Ancestry settled on C2Treasury fromTreasuryXpress and found implementing thesystem to be “refreshingly easy,” he said. “TheTreasuryXpress team promised it would be aquick and efficient experience and it was.

“The expectation in the industry is that
it’s going to take nine months or more and
just endless training and almost a full head
count dedicated to get this thing up and
running,” Peay said. “The great thing about
TreasuryXpress is the software is on-demand
and so plug-and-play. I think I had a login in 30
hours from the time I signed the contract.

I had data flowing in two days.

“The biggest challenge we had up front
was the banks getting in line and getting our
data feeds squared away,” he added.

Peay says the new system has allowedtreasury to automate 98% of its cash position,as well as its weekly reporting to stakeholders.“Our cash forecast has a home, and it’s gettingmore and more sophisticated, and it’s giving usmore and more insight as we get more and morecomfortable with the platform,” he said. “It’seasier for us to make good decisions now thatwe have good data.”Ancestry’s treasury team sought a decision to prepare for future complexity